


Raindrops

by missioncomplete



Series: Requiem Moratorium [1]
Category: Final Fantasy VII: Advent Children
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2007-12-01
Updated: 2007-12-01
Packaged: 2017-10-09 12:03:34
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 688
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/87115
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/missioncomplete/pseuds/missioncomplete
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Rain was falling on the city of Edge. Children were splashing in puddles, people were hurrying along. It was a strangely typical day for most people, save one. The rain was falling through him- a spectre walking amongst people who could not see him.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Raindrops

Rain was falling on the city of Edge. Children were splashing in puddles, people were hurrying along. It was a strangely typical day for most people, save one.

A gray pallor lent itself to everything in Edge, a dreary day on top of the rain- not all rain was dreary like this, sometimes the sun broke through and most times it was bright, but this was... dark. As if the sky itself was mourning, shedding tears for the last gasp of life he breathed that day; a last gasp that was now standing outside of the Seventh Heaven, remembering the brief but good times they had there, making amends with the past and once time enemies.

Standing in the rain... hadn't it been the same when he first looked at this building, knowing what and who was inside it? A slow drizzle, leaving everything fresh. The kids were playing then too, but that was the time when many had black rashes coating their skin... and once in a while, one had to be carted off for burial. He'd pause a moment each time that happened, giving them their due silence, a strangely touching thing for a turk to do for a child he didn't even know, but times were strange already...

Inside the bar, looking through the window he could see calm, silent figures, bowing their heads, speaking softly- quietly - as if afraid the dead might hear them.

He couldn't hear them anyway, there was no sound, no... smell, no touch. Not for him.

There weren't very many people in the bar, not like there had been for the President's funeral, not like there had been for Sephiroth, when he had been declared dead, but they were all quality people. His friends, his enemies, his allies. People that mattered to him. That's what they were.

It was strange, he thought, that they could get together like this. It was strange of all humans, how things can bring people close when they are at their worst.

He could see Tifa, in her elegant poise, and Cloud there, as well as Rude, Tseng and Elena... hey, even Rufus was in there. He had to smile at Tifa, her eyes lowered and wiped often, trying gallantly to keep her chin up. It was rather surprising and touching. There'd never been any indication of her caring about him, they'd tangled so often in the past, but.. Tifa was _sad_ for him. It was harder to tell with Cloud, you never could know what was his own problems and what was sadness for other people. The two probably overlapped quite a bit. _He_'d rather figured the blond fighter was prone to hiding emotions, but maybe today wasn't one of those days. It wasn't sadness, so to speak. Maybe a melancholy respect.

The others were different... Rude would be silent, giving his respects to a forever-silenced partner. Elena was actually crying, poor thing. He never thought she'd cry that hard over him- after all, he'd tormented her as a rookie... but he had to say he was rather proud of how she turned out. Tseng was, as ever, stoic and calm, not shedding a tear like Rude, but underneath it you could see a glimmer of something. A loss, perhaps. He'd never been too good at reading Tseng. Rufus didn't show anything, but the very fact he showed up that that solemn gathering belied that. They were like family, him and his turks.

It was strange watching the raindrops fall right through himself as well, though he looked solid to his own eyes. Nobody else seemed to see him.

It was such a... lonely feeling, a sad feeling.

Was he mourning his own death? No, it couldn't be. He had a good life, a stormy one, filled with ups and downs, but he wouldn't trade it for the world, or another life for that matter. That's what love did to him, despite his swearing he would never love anyone. He would have taken that bullet again and again, no matter how many times he could have been offered life.

Reno was saying goodbye.


End file.
